


DaveKat AUs

by cthchewy (pyrrhic_victoly)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Banter, Crack, Ficlet Collection, Humanstuck, Innuendo, M/M, Sky Pirates, Trollstuck, i'm sorry i can't write normal, really fucking weird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-11 08:27:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3320675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrrhic_victoly/pseuds/cthchewy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Really late) Giftstuck treats! <3</p><p>1. Swordstuck (fantasy knights parody AU)<br/>2. Espresso Your Love (coffeeshop AU)<br/>3. Leftovers (extra crack-y AU, I really can't say more...)<br/>4. Pygmalion (uh, romance novelist AU?)<br/>5. The Aeronaut's Crew (steampunk!Alternia AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Swordstuck

**Author's Note:**

  * For [affectionateTea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/affectionateTea/gifts), [BatchSan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BatchSan/gifts), [tufrog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tufrog/gifts), [ChayTru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChayTru/gifts).



> i herd u liek davekats
> 
> …And I didn’t know who should get which gift. SO HERE, Y’ALL CAN SHARE. Sorry it’s a bit less personal this way, but I hope everyone can find at least one that they like (once they're all up - there will be 5). I’m such a huge creepy sucker for this pairing that I got all excited like a huge creep when I saw so many requests for it. Then real life punched me in the gut so they’re really late. Think of it as finding old-ass candy canes under the couch months after Gristmas. I’ll be that gaudy neighbor who leaves the mismatched icicle lights up until V-day.
> 
> So yeah, this is for all y’all who made similar-ish requests for a DaveKat AU. If I skipped anyone, lemme know and I’ll add you in. There were some requests that were skirting the line a bit and I didn't know if you'd want in on this stale couch-candy-cane shindig.

“You should really stop,” John said.

“Can’t stop won’t stop.”

“Seriously, Dave, there’s only so many legendary swords in the world. You’re gonna run out soon, so might as well stay here and take a normal sword from our armory.”

“Why, you offering me your ‘sword’? That a thing, John?”

“Eew!” Prince John scrunched up his nose in disgust, followed by a laugh to soften the blow. “No homo! And even if homo, no way, you’ll break it!”

Sir Strider shrugged at the statement and, bowing to his liege, excused himself from the prince’s chambers. Had it been a few months ago, he would have feigned to take a deeper affront to John’s jests, but it had been quite a few quests and just as many failures on his journey to find himself a swank magic sword.

Every knight worth his or her salt had a magic sword. Lady Pyrope’s slim silver rapier, for some reason nicknamed “Sick Grindzz”, was an example of such. (She’d gotten it off some child-abusing wizard with a bunch of “Z”s in his name.) Even the mostly-incompetent Squire English had managed to score himself enchanted twin dueling sabers by saving a town from skull creatures.

Dave, too, had slain his fair share of foes. Yet every magical sword he came across, no matter how the legends said they were unbreakable or somesuch, managed to crack right in two in Sir Strider’s hands. He was starting to think he was cursed – or, actually, he _knew_ he was cursed, which was why, many quests and just as many failures later, he did as he always did and set off to ask the kingdom’s infamous Blood Knight for help.

As he was on his way to the library he knew Sir Vantas liked to haunt, Dave passed by the weaver women – magic weavers, that is – and his sister among them. They swished by, heads covered by hoods and long robes trailing behind them. Each held her hands in front, clasped together and hidden by voluminous sleeves.

Rose broke out of the weavers’ formation to smirk at him, and Dave paused his stride so as not to take her too far from the group. Family was a pain, he thought, because one always had to put up with their asshattery. Little sisters were even more of a pain than most other family members because they were nosy as fuck, and _magic_ wielding little sisters had otherworldly means to pry.

“You know,” Rose said after the other women had rounded the corner and gone out of earshot, “They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results.”

“Dunno what you’re talking about.”

“Well, are you sure a sword is what you’re after?”

“Uh… _yes_?”

Rose only smirked more, all cryptic and shit. Dave figured they had classes for that at the magical academies: How To Look Like a Know-It-All Douchelord 101. “Okay then,” she said. “Good luck with that. Say hello to Sir Vantas for me.”

 

* * *

 

“Yo, Vantas—“

“No.”

“Vantas.”

“No more swords.”

“Karkat.”

“No.”

“Karshizzle my nizzle fee fi fo fizzle.”

“No, fuck you, and no.”

“You work it, bro. Sizzle. Hot ‘n’ fresh, like meat on a griddle—”

“ _What?_ ” Vantas slammed shut his tome of blood majyyks, fierce troll eyes raising to meet Dave’s.

“Dude, your eyes. Those bags aren’t even bags anymore, they’re _baggage_.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m packing for a vacation, you shitmonger. I’ve stuffed all my belongings up my nook and under my eyes, now _what do you want_?”

“…Also Rose says hi.”

“That’s it? You interrupted my studies because your stupid human sideways dancestor said, and I quote, ‘hi’?”

“Technically she said ‘hello’. Also also, I need you to help me find a sword again.”

“…I will murder you. Slowly.”

 

* * *

 

Karkat Vantas was unlike the other knights of the court not because he was a troll (there were plenty) or a mutant (oddballs tended to gravitate to Prince John), but because he chose to be a knight when his natural abilities said he ought to be a mage. Karkat was stubborn though, and he used his inclination toward blood magic to forge weapons out of his own life force. He was one of the few knights who didn’t have a magic sword, but in his case it was because he _was_ his sword – it ran throughout his veins when not in use.

Blood, however, was also the aspect of unity, of bonds. This was the reason Dave always went to Karkat to help with finding a new prospective sword, or so he told himself. Perhaps if Karkat were to offer his blessings, the unity thing would conquer Dave’s shitastic luck and make it so the sword stayed intact.

Two days after Dave’s library visit, Sir Vantas approached the other knight in the mess hall. Dave was having a late lunch after a grueling training session; he was sweaty and tired and the only food left in the kitchens were the dregs of the stew pot. Said bowl of unappetizing stew jiggled as Karkat dropped yet another musty tome in front of Dave. The yellowing pages were opened to a drawing of a sword upon which it was inscribed, “Caledfwlch”.

“Ka-led-fwilch? Fwelch? Foolch? Help me Vantas I can’t read.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Well can you read it?”

“Of course I can. Fuck if I know how it’s pronounced, though.”

Dave lifted the tome and stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth as he contemplated the artistic rendition with much intensity. He flipped it turnways and contemplated it some more. “I think it’s calling to me,” he finally said. “It’s all like, ‘Help, Sir Strider! Free me from this stone! For you are the only knight ironic enough to wield a sword with this kind of sicknasty name that no one can pronounce.’ I think that’s what it’s saying.”

Karkat remained unimpressed, his features impassive. “And you want me to come with you.”

“Duh. S’what we always do.”

At this, Karkat grunted in frustration. “I don’t get why you think you have anybody to impress. Sword or no sword, you have skill to spare. The prince already thinks of you as his personal knight.”

Dave had no response to this; he merely shrugged. “But it’s not like you’re busy, right?”

“Augh!”

 

* * *

 

“Pull it— No! Gently! Gently, you slurry-swilling douchewaffle! Just—! Just give it a little tug first!”

“Jeez, man, chillax, I got this.”

“You’re being too rough!”

“It’s not your bulge, Karkat. This sword can handle a bit of a rougher handjob like this—“

“STOP JACKING OFF THE SWORD!”

“You’re the one who told me to tug!”

“NOT REPEATEDLY! NOT TO THAT SORT OF RHYTHM!”

Caledfwlch remained stuck steadfast in its stone no matter how Dave sweet talked it or jacked it off. Karkat had purposely cut himself when they first approached the legendary weapon, and he used his blood to coat the blade and add extra enchantments. Caledfwlch, like the other magic swords they’d come across before, had already borne an absurd amount of strengthening enchantments, and yet Sir Strider’s shit fucking negative luck was always enough to counter them. The swords _were_ quite ancient under the enchantments, so it was no surprise that Dave’s mysterious enchantment-cancelling touch caused them to break.

It made no sense, but it happened every. Goddamn. Time.

Caledfwlch was no exception. Dave, having grown impatient with gentle tugs, wrapped both hands around the hilt and pulled with all his might. The sword’s older enchantments dissipated at once, until all that was left holding it together was Karkat’s blood. It creaked within the stone and, for a second, appeared to rise a few inches…

Then there was a crack. And a snap. And the legendary Caledfwlch, said to be indestructible, snapped in half mere inches above where its point remained buried in the stone.

There was silence for a moment as both knights Strider and Vantas surveyed the damage.

“…For the record, this is not what your asshole will look like if I ever plow you,” Dave said, eyes staying resolutely on the wreckage.

“What, you mean bloodied and with half a sword still stuck in it?”

“…Yes. That.”

Karkat shook his head. “Fuck you, Strider. Seriously. Fuck. You. You’ll never get a sword to last as long as you keep walking around with that curse that you don’t even know _where_ you picked up. Where the hell are your priorities? These quests are fruitless and always will be.”

Dave sucked in a breath. Karkat was on to him and growing impatient. He let out his breath, and along with it came the truth. “Yeah, I know. It’s really more of an excuse to hang out with you.”

“That’s…”

“Really sweet of me, right?”

“I was going to say ‘cowardly’.”

“Wow, harsh.”

“But sweet works, too.” Karkat stole a glance at the bloody sword stump and grimaced. “Next time, though, you should just ask me out.”

“Would you say ‘yes’?”

“You’ll just have to find out, won’t you?”

“Then consider yourself asked. Karkat Vantas, will you please, _please_ let me give you a good dicking.”

Karkat bit his bottom lip to suppress a laugh, though he still managed to growl out, “If your sword breaks off in me, I will end you.”

“You keep saying that, but you never do. Uh oh. Better stop before I start thinking that might just be the way you prickly types express love.”

“ _As if_ ,” he said. “Who’d fall in love with you, Strider?”

But there was no heat in the words, and both knights couldn’t hold back their matching grins as they headed back to the castle, half a Caledfwlch in tow.


	2. Espresso Your Love

You work the late shift at the coffee shop because fuck mornings. It’s hard enough getting up for your afternoon classes as is, and you’re only a part time student. These days they call your kind “non-traditional students”. Basically you fucked up, dicked around in your teenage years and floundered for things to make a living of in your newfound adulthood.

You spent some years DJing while doing amateur photography and filmmaking on the side. You thought you’d always be a DJ until one night the strobe lights in the club hit you in the face and you just snapped, had an epiphany right there: you hate clubbing. Like, you actually hate night clubs and the people who frequent them. You hate bar hoppers; they’re generally horrid people who use alcohol to cover up the fact that they can’t actually form meaningful relationships with others because they’re too mentally deficient to hold the types of conversations that are necessary to forming said meaningful relationships.

Bar people, club people… They’re shallow. Vapid. Hooking up with them makes you want to toss your cookies. Having to be drunk just to get over the fact that your partner is an idiot makes you hate yourself in the mornings, which you already hate because fuck mornings.

Maybe it’s as your sister says and you do have “sapiosexual leanings”, whatever the fuck that means. Maybe you just got tired of people thinking you were actually some sort of frat boy reject. Irony got the better of you. Your old pal, your fickle mistress. In the pursuit of irony, you almost became the type of person you set out to mock, and that’s just straight up bullshit. You dropped that shit and got serious about your filmmaking instead.

So here you are, working off your tuition via ironic baristahood. You knew you _had_ to work at this place, “Espresso Love”, when you saw their take-out cups with the most painfully puntastic motto on them: “Espresso Your Love… for Coffee!” Yes. Hell Yes. Hell. Fucking. Yes. No matter how it may have led you astray in the past, irony will forever be your mistress. It is with the utmost pride that you don your shitty work apron with the heart logo on it.

On the weekends, you tour around the pretentious downtown art galleries with Jade. The two of you try to get them to buy or display your art shit. Jade has so many pumpkin paintings, it’s hilarious. Even her non-pumpkin paintings have pumpkins hidden in the shadows or innocently sitting on rooftops in the background. And you? You take photos of dead things. Together you’re like a year-round Halloween show.

It’s because of the pumpkin paintings that you first notice him. There’s a guy who comes in for a triple shot of espresso every weeknight. Like clockwork, he stumbles in with an armful of medical texts, scoffs at the undergrads who sometimes hang around, and plants himself at the corner table under the pumpkin painting you convinced your boss to let you hang up. It’s got a bunch of cute aliens frolicking around a pumpkin patch, which is so awesome you don’t even know. Lots of people have sat down at that table, but this dude admired the painting first. In your head, you were like, “All right, anyone who can show pumpkins the proper appreciation they deserve gets auto-bro status.”

He keeps catching your eye because he’s older, for one. Not like tenured professor old, but older than your usual clientele of, well, the barely legal undergrads who sometimes hang around. He looks to be about your age, mid-twenties, though it could just be the raccoon eyes because med school, man, you’ve heard it’s a bitch. Guy must be working hella shifts at the campus hospital.

You find yourself watching him, berating yourself for being a creeper, and then giving in and watching him some more. You can’t exactly pinpoint what it is about him that you like. He’s short, tan skin, dark hair and eyes, and all scowls and frowns. He’s cute, but in no way is he devastatingly attractive. You’d say it’s because you haven’t gotten laid in forever (as in, since you quit being a club douche), but there’s something about this guy that makes you want to have an actual _relationship_ relationship with him. Like with cuddles. And handholding. And movie dates where you steal each other’s popcorn. _Unironically_ , oh my god, how will you deal? Grumpy boy is going to pay for making you feel this way. You don’t even know his _name_. No one gets away with sapping away a Strider’s cool like that. You are so going to mess up his next drink order in retaliation.

He comes in right on time. The bell on the door jingles; he orders his espresso as usual, and goes to sit at his usual spot. You make him a latte with a grumpy face drawing in the foam, slide it to him nonchalantly, stand back to watch the fallout.

Grumpy boy looks at his drink, looks up at you, raises an eyebrow. “And my espresso?”

You remain silent. Shrug.

“Oh, come on. You’ve been making my drink perfectly for months. Don’t tell me you’ve been hit by some form of sudden dementia and can’t remember how to make a frggin’ plain espresso.”

You break your pokerface with a smirk. You can’t help it, he’s too adorable. His espresso was behind your back all along, so you bring that out and slide it toward him. “Latte’s on the house,” you say as you walk back to the counter.

Behind you, for the first time since you first saw this guy months ago, you hear him laugh. It’s soft and raspy, more of a disbelieving chuckle than outright mirthful laughter, but it’s music to your ears. That’s how you realize you’re crushing hard, because fuck, you just want to make this guy laugh again.

 

* * *

 

There’s a guy who keeps glancing at you when you go in for coffee and some late night studying. You know it’s him when you feel eyes on you because, well, he’s the barista so sometimes he’s the only other person around. His name tag says “Dave” and you’ve heard other customers call him “Strider”. You didn’t think anything of it when you first met him. Honestly, you were much more invested in his coffee, which is infinitely better than the hospital’s break room swill.

You can’t deny that Dave is attractive, though. His comments are witty and irreverent when chatting with the other regulars. He’s even helped them cram for exams before. As much as giggly freshmen annoy you with their constant _cheer_ and _enthusiasm_ , you think it’s sweet that Dave draws shitty comics for them when they’re down. You find yourself biting back a lot of smiles when he’s around. You’re determined to be grumpy, so fuck him for trying to ruin that.

He _can’t_ like you. There’s no way, right? Besides, he looks like a douchebag. It’s like your friend Eridan, with the capes. A non-douchebag would never wear sunglasses indoors, at midnight. The nice and intelligent thing must be a façade because you have the worst luck ever and it would be just like you to crush on not only another straight boy, but also on someone who was secretly a psycho dickweed.

Dave starts making you free lattes with grumpy faces in the foam. He almost gets in trouble with his boss for not drawing Espresso Your Love’s signature heart on all his foamy drinks, so then you start getting free lattes with heart-shaped grumpy faces. It’s ridiculous. _He’s_ ridiculous. And he makes your heart thump so hard in your chest that it aches, like _fuck_ , why is it that you find his asshattery romantic?

You try not to reciprocate, you really do. You don’t need a relationship on top of work and school stress. You are _so close_ to being a doctor; you can’t afford to be distracted by this asshole barista with his smirks and his photography and his “lemme sweep you off your feet with free coffee”. Fuck that. Karkat Vantas is not _easy_. You will take his free fucking drinks because no way are you turning down coffee, but that’ll be as far as it goes.

That’s what you tell yourself until the next night, when Dave escalates his coffee-wooing. He puts your free latte in a take-out cup so that he can draw all over the cardboard. For all you know, he might have been doodling on the cup all night. It’s far too decorated to be something he did right this moment. The entire cup is covered, bits of rhyme here and there – you’re not sure if it’s rap or poetry, hearts, dinosaurs, stick people spouting off nonsense in speech bubbles.

You spend more of the night looking at the cup than you should; you end up taking it home with you, but you still don’t say anything to Strider, and he doesn’t ask.

“Sooo cute! It’s puppy love!” Nepeta says. In a lapse of judgment, you tell her about your barista-stalker and immediately regret it.

The grumpy-face lattes continue to be housed in decorated cups. You continue not to say anything to Dave except “hi” and your espresso order, and sometimes, stuttered out and shyer than you like to come across, “bye”.

It gets to the point where you’re blushing before you even walk into the coffee shop. One of these days, you think, maybe when you’ve got a break coming up, you’ll have a conversation for real, ask him out for real.

Dave ruins it by showing his real colors. He’s the color of dick. He draws a dick on your coffee.

The drink options boxes on the cup have been co-opted for his middle school shenanigans. They now say, “Will you go out with me? Yes / No” and he drew a _dick_ on your _coffee_. It is the most juvenile thing ever.

“Is this sexual harassment, dickface?”

Dave sighs dramatically. He even lifts his hand to his forehead in the classic “woe is me” pose.

“Alas, I have been shot down!” he says.

Fuck his theatrics. You’re the one who should be sighing in exasperation! “You know,” you say, “maybe I wouldn’t shoot you down if you would open those worthless buccal flaps you call lips and speak the words ‘Hey Karkat will you go out with me?’ Like a _normal person_. Your inept coffee-flirting is giving me neuroses! How old are you, five?”

Dave scratches his chin, seemingly deep in thought. What he says, however, is not what you expected. At all.

“So. Your name is Karkat?”

Fuck it. Fuck it all. You never even told him your name. _You_ are the one who is inept at flirting. You feel your cheeks heat up until you’re sure you’re blushing brighter than you ever have.

“Yes.”

“Cool, cool.”

He quickly switches the dick-latte for your usual grumpy-face-latte, and all is well in the world.


	3. Leftovers

You leave food out long enough, it gains sentience. That’s what Bro always said. Granted, he was being facetious, but with the way Bro said things – deadly serious, stating even the most absurd untruths as fact – Dave couldn’t help but sometimes do a double-take. It made him reflect upon the possibilities for just a few seconds more.

But really, food gaining sentience? Who’d ever heard of such a thing? It was with greatest irony that Dave began to name the foodstuffs that got left around in Casa de Strider for way too long. Bro said they’d come alive, so Dave made preparations.

Pizza Phil, the last slice from two weeks ago, tucked in his box at night covered with his napkin blanket. Chippy the Dorito, Fajita Francine… They were all once upon a time residents of the Striders’ humble abode.

The newest long-term resident was originally named Karl, a half-eaten Krispy Krab sandwich from Seafood Shack, a fine dining establishment Bro had deemed too ironic to pass up. Karl had sat unmolested for weeks, forgotten in his little grease grotto of a takeout bag until one day Dave called out, “Yo, have you seen Karl? Imma take him out,” and the response came not from Bro.

Bro had, as a matter of fact, ninja-d the hell out of there just a few minutes before. The intruder’s voice was raspy as if unused for a long time. It said, “I’m over here. And it’s Karkat, not Karl. The fuck kind of stupid name is Karl?”

“The fuck kind of stupid name is Karkat?” Dave asked as he dug through the trash to find the Seafood Shack bag.

He eventually found it and continued conversing with Karkat even though there was a numb portion in his mind that said this wasn’t right. There was no way this was happening. It couldn’t be happening… right? And if it _was_ happening, the logical thing to do was stomp on the monstrous thing and dump its ass in the waste disposal. Dude, what if the sandwich got infected with, like, an alien looking for a human host or something and that’s why it was talking?

Despite his better judgment, Karkat was self-loathing enough to seem genuine, and Dave kept him around out of curiosity. Then it was because conversations with Karkat were a comforting constant. Then it was because an odd sort of friendship had bloomed.

Yeah, there were times Dave thought he was going insane, especially when Karkat refused to talk when Bro was around. Maybe the talking crab sandwich was a figment of his deranged imagination. Maybe these were the early signs of some major psychosis going on in the old gray matter. Still, he couldn’t let go even when Karkat was the one convincing him to.

They were sitting together on the beat-up couch, Dave sipping a bottle of AJ with a bag of cheesy popcorn opened between him and Karkat.

“It’s not a secret that you’re insane,” Karkat said.

“I know. You think I don’t know? This is gonna end up like in _A Beautiful Mind_ , where the dude’s best bro was never real. Breaks my heart, man.”

“Fuck you, Dave. Don’t you dare bring that scene up to me.”

“Whatcha gonna do, cry tartar sauce tears?”

“I’m gonna mold, then I’m gonna rot, then a fly will stick its filthy ass in me to lay eggs and I’ll sprout maggots.”

“No. Dude, no, that’s not gonna happen. I won’t let it.”

“Oh? And how, pray tell, will the great Dave Strider prevent this from happening? Will you stop the flow of time?”

“Things need moisture to grow mold. That’s basic fifth grade science. All we’ve gotta do is dry you out, turn you into a thirsty sonuvabitch.”

“…You’re hitting on a crab sandwich.”

“Not really hitting on, just slipping in a lil’ somethin’ somethin’.”

“You’re _ironically_ pretending to _flirt with a goddamn crab sandwich_.”

“Is it working?”

“No. Maybe you should forget about me and hang out with humans before you go crazier than you already are. Get a boyfriend or something, you ironic piece of shit.”

“ _Or_ , maybe we could watch more shitty romcoms. I won’t even laugh this time, I promise.”

“Hmm. And no asshole peanut gallery?”

“No commentary, either.”

“Put in Bridget Jones.”


	4. Pygmalion

“I’m sorry Mr. Vantas, but your characters are getting stale.”

You purse your lips and glower at your agent, Rose Lalonde, also known as that bitch who bathes daily in liquid concentrated schadenfreude. Ms. Lalonde, embittered by her personal failures in becoming a published novelist, now takes it out on her clients. She’s careful to act like a professional, but you can see it in her eyes how she loathes the publishing industry and the types of worthless drivel they churn out and force upon the masses.

She especially hates mainstream romance novelists, of which you are one, for what she perceives to be the production of literary trash. Trite, conventional, enforcing gender and sexuality stereotypes – these are all things you can easily imagine her saying, though she is careful never to voice the words. You know from your long working relationship that she prefers gothic horrors and, from one drunken email, kinky wizard slash. (One of these days you will write and publish wizard slash to one-up her in the strange passive-aggressive dance she has somehow pulled you in.)

“Well, what do you want from me?” you finally ask. “There’s only so much I can do differently that the industry will accept.” 

Sometimes, despite being a die-hard romantic, you think Rose is right about most romance novels – that there is so little real love in them, that the relationship dynamics they promote present troublesome social implications. There is so much _more_ you want to write, but you can’t put those things down in the manuscripts if you want them to have a chance at being published. Sometimes you think Rose picked you up because she genuinely liked your early writings with their themes of social justice and rising up, and she loved seeing you get your heart crushed by ambition, loved seeing you gradually lose your artistic integrity as your popularity rose, loved seeing you debase yourself for your fans in the way that she could never bring herself to do. You don’t know whether you should consider Rose a kindred spirit or the Queen of Bitch Mountain.

But she is your agent, and you continue to listen to her advice.

“I think it’s time,” she says. “It’s time for you to write the novel that you’ve always wanted to write. The one with the characters you’ve always wanted to bring to life. Tell me their story, the full story without fear of censorship. You’re popular enough now to get away with it. It doesn’t even have to be a romance this time.”

You laugh a bitter, hollow laugh. The Karkat who could write the story she is asking for is gone. Still, you say you’ll try. There’s a flickering of hope in your heart.

That night you have a dream. You are being held in someone’s arms. You’ve had this dream before. His limbs are lanky, lithely muscled. His hands are calloused as they stroke your cheeks – sword callouses, you know but don’t know how you know.

You’re important to each other. You sense that he loves you. You want to love him too; you’re sure you could love him if only you could remember who he was to you.

“Wait for me,” he says.

“It hurts.”

“I know. Just… wait for me. We’ll find the others, too.”

“It hurts, it hurts…”

You wake up with tear tracks running down your face along with newfound resolve.

There’s a character whose story you’ve always wanted to tell, but were afraid to. He’s so fully fleshed out in your mind that there are times you get the feeling that he’s not really your creation, as if he’s a real person whose story you happen to know… somehow.

You brush up on writing fighting scenes. You research different types of swords and martial arts in your spare time. To pay the bills, you start a trite serial in a romance magazine, but your heart’s not in it. With attention bordering on obsession, you focus on improving the technical aspects of your writing so that you can tell his story the way it was meant to be told.

Your next novel, the novel you’ve always wanted to write, will be about him. It won’t be a romance as all your previous stories have been. Well, you think there will be a romantic component, but you haven’t completely figured it out yet. It’ll be an adventure story, a story of bonds transcending time and space, and even though there’s no main love interest planned out yet, aren’t those bonds of friendship, family, and enmity romantic enough in their own way? 

“His name is Dave Strider,” you tell Rose the next time she visits, “and he’s a time traveler. Later on, he becomes entangled with otherworldly forces and becomes a dimension traveler as well.”

“Sounds intriguing. Is that an homage to Tolkien in his name? Fitting for a wandering hero archetype. How many books do you have planned?”

“Three, maybe four? I don’t want each book to be a Colonel Sassacre’s but the worldbuilding is… There’s a lot to cover.”

You’ve built the skeleton for a dystopian future. Hive minds, brain uploads, the looming threat of alien conquest. A young boy, conscripted from birth into an order of peacekeeping “knights”, trains for that which he knows not, and finds refuge in the past. The first book alone will span _years_ of Dave’s life without even touching on the main plot of the series – that of the destruction of his entire home universe and the aftermath.

Rose nods in acknowledgment. “All right, I can work with that. It depends on the first novel, though, whether you get the green light for the others. Don’t be afraid to end it on a bit of a cliffhanger.”

You take Rose’s advice, which is good as always. The first in the _Clockstopper_ series is published to rave reviews. Your storytelling is “masterful, a fast-paced genre-savvy rollercoaster”. Dave’s voice is “relentlessly irreverent” and “so much sarcastic fun”, “strong enough to pull the narrative through its darker themes without becoming maudlin”.

It launches you into the sci-fi/fantasy mainstream, taking fans of your romances by surprise. (While you’ve written stories in those settings before, they focused more on the characters falling in love than any external plot.) There are calls for more and, from your longstanding fans, for a hint of the romances on which you built your previous fame. They like Dave, especially his adult self at the end of the book; they want to see him paired off.

You’re asked in an interview how you came up with the idea for such a character. “I don’t know,” you answer honestly. “It seems like he’s always been with me.”

“Ah, is he the man of your dreams then?” the interviewer asks coyly. 

You’ve written romances with all sorts of couples, and your own sexual orientation is no secret. The question still takes you by surprise such that it’s all you can do to awkwardly shrug. “He’s like an old friend, I guess. I’ve had the idea for him, or someone like him, since childhood. He’s grown with me, matured with me. Dave’s been sitting in the back of my head for so long the voice just comes naturally.”

He _is_ the man of your dreams, though. Just not in the way she implied. (Or maybe it’s both?) Rose smirks at you after the interview and says, “You have interesting taste in men.”

Fuck her. She read the first draft and started psychoanalyzing every character, and you by extension for creating them. The first thing she said about Dave, even though you revealed nothing about his romantic or sexual preferences, was, “He’s gay, isn’t he. Very phallic imagery.” You’re pretty sure that’s grounds for dismissing Rose’s opinion on these matters.

You go to bed in a good mood that night. It’s been a whirlwind of promotions and book signings since the release, and fuck are you’re glad that things will slow down now. The interview was the last of your scheduled promotions, so finally you get to say a big, hearty ‘fuck you’ to insomnia.

Maybe it’s the sleeping pills – a new prescription – messing with your head. The dream, long overdue, is sharper this time, or you’re more lucid. You’re not sure when you drifted off. There was just the feeling of lying down, closing your eyes, and then slowly, ever so slowly, the sensation of someone lying next to you, wrapping his arms around you as always, tucking your head into the crook of his neck.

“Karkat, bro, you didn’t answer my calls. They were cosmic calls, from spaaaaace. You can’t ignore those.”

“I haven’t slept in ages, bulgelicker. Give me a break.”

(What is a bulge? Your mouth is running on autopilot.)

“It doesn’t hurt this time?”

“It always hurts. I feel so hollow, like my life isn’t real.”

“That’s paradox space for you. This is Matrix-grade shit we’re dealing with. Timelines, man, they’re a bitch. But I’ll sort things out real soon. Wait for me until then?”

“Yeah, of course. There’s no one else.”

“Heh.” He smirks into your hair. “Such a romantic. Do me a favor – put yourself into the books. I wanna see you do a Mary Sue.”

“My writing is fucking _glorious_ and you know it! Mary Sue? _Mary Sue?_ It will be a _tasteful_ and _unnoticeable_ author avatar blending in with the existing universe like a majestic fucking tiger in the jungle.”

“Awwww yes. Do it, Karkat. _Do it._ Write glorious RPF of us frick-fracking.”

You muffle your snort into his neck. It tickles him and he shoves at you; you shove back. He tries to pin you down, so you make a grab for his cape. Then there are lips and teeth and hot breaths ghosting over your skin and… you’re shaking. You’re sobbing.

“Why can’t you be with me forever?”

“I will,” he promises before he fades away.

You greet the dawn streaming in from the window by flipping it the double bird. The dream lies half-forgotten in your memories. But, as the series goes from the second novel to the third, you pen yourself (or a character very much like you) in as a possible love interest for Dave, among others. You figure you’ll leave the “official pairing” question open-ended, let the fans imagine who they want to end up with Dave.

Your “Mary Sue” is well-received. In the second novel he’s a helpful antagonist. There’s a lot of banter and one-upmanship. By the third novel they’ve become best friends and maybe more. (You’ve always been a sucker for shifting relationship dynamics.)

You’re sitting at your computer, banging out the final scene of the final book of this goddamn series that has consumed you for years when you get this… feeling. Your chest feels hollow again, hollow with dread and promise both. There’s a cold creeping up your arms from the fear of uncertainty. Have you really written fiction? Is your relationship with Dave unhealthy escapism, wish-fulfillment, or… something… _else_?

It’s as you plunk that final period that you feel someone breathing down your neck. Literally. You whip around in your computer chair and land face to face with blond hair and red eyes.

“D-Dave?” Your voice is barely a hoarse whisper.

“Hey, bro. ‘Sup?”

“That is… That is a shitty fucking greeting! After all this time and you just… No. Our romantic reunion is _ruined_ , Dave. _Ruined_. You are the ultimate shitlord. It is you.”

You would have said more, but he swoops in to pull you up into an embrace.

You don’t know if he’s real or if you’ve finally lost it. His chest feels solid under your palms, and that’s enough for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Possibility #1: Karkat is a crazy person who fell in love with his own creation.  
> Possibility #2: This is a doomed timeline Dave whose home universe (very AU future Earth) was destroyed, but he bands together with other doomed god tier space-time peeps to create some semblance of a new home through horrorterrors and shenanigans, idk. _Dave_ is the one who's worldbuilding, making a happier, more normal world for his friends to inhabit. He had to finish his timeline-wrangling before he could come live with the others. Karkat somehow retains memories/has visions of pre-universe-creation events because of his blood aspect. Or something like that. 
> 
> Personally, I prefer option 2. But it's up to you! o_o;


	5. The Aeronaut's Crew

Karkat’s footsteps crunch over the yellowing grass on the hill. Across the dying meadow, at the very edges of the already isolated brownblood community, lies a simple cliffside hut. No neighbors for miles, the scent of the sea breeze drifts and stings, icy fingers scratching his nose and cheeks even shadowed as they are under the thick gray cloak.

His hands are cupped around a small mechanical bird. Wings that once gleamed a copper-tinted gold are now dulled, discolored, pockmarked with sweeps of improper care.

“Is that it?” Karkat asks in whispers. He lifts the bird cradled in his palms so that his voice will reach before it’s carried away by the whipping wind. “The Puppeteer’s hive, we made it? He’ll fix you?”

There’s a twitch, a small, shrill grinding of joints before the bird falls back into its previous position, lying like the dead. In a soft, soft voice like rusted bells, it chirps but once. He can no longer speak.

Sensing the new urgency of the situation, Karkat kicks off in a run. “Hold on, Dave, just a little longer.”

Dave attempts another chirp; it comes out a rattle.

“Hold on—!”

 

* * *

 

Pirates. It _had_ to be pirates. Just when he thought his life couldn’t get any worse.

Karkat Vantas had been aware of his plight as a mutant since before first pupation. Even as a grub, he knew to hide his bright red body. Red was the color of sickness, of danger. Inflamed horns and blinded eyes turned red. The color brought out the fearful instincts of trolls and made the weak-minded ones lose their cool, made them feel compelled to cull the cancer before it could take root and infect others with whatever sickness it carried.

So he hid because he knew the only fates available to mutants were life in slavery or freedom in death. In his case, with trollish violent instincts being the way they are, death was the most likely option. And he was almost proud of that, in a way. At least he would get to keep his dignity if he was ever found out, or so he thought.

But then _pirates_. Goddamn lususfucking _pirates_ had to enter the picture. It was almost an honor that he’d been captured by one of the most feared scourges of the skies, the Marquise Spinneret Mindfang. Almost, because it was still an insult that, after she had razed his town, she smirked at him in her very condescending, very adult way and said, “Well aren’t you a cute wiggler? I think I’ll keep you around.”

Karkat would have spat invectives at her, but in that instant he felt the Marquise’s cold, spidery fingers sink into his mind and still his tongue.

Slavery was the very last thing on Karkat’s “to do” list, even after “fuck an Imperial drone”, but once it happened, his natural pragmatism kicked in and prevented him from acting up too rashly. There was no point in dying for naught. Perhaps if he continued to live, his life would eventually improve, and besides, the Marquise wasn’t so bad a mistress. Her daughter was a huge bitch who liked to tease the slaves, but life aboard the Airship Mindfang wasn’t wholly intolerable.

Karkat swabbed the deck and helped fix little things here and there. He helped in the kitchens when they were short on hands, helped the mechanics fetch tools and even learned a bit of engineering along the way. Mindfang’s crew knew he was a mutant – some were disgusted, some were alarmed – but none of them wanted to deal with her wrath should her toy mutie come to a bad end.

In the beginning his only friend was Tavros, another mutant slave with whom Karkat was quartered because they were the same age. (The Marquise didn’t want any adult slaves getting _ideas_ about taking liberties with her little pets.) Tavros had great big glittering wings that he’d never even tried to use. He’d gained them during second pupation when he was already a slave, and on top of that he couldn’t even walk without a limp! He’d put up too much of a fight when they’d come to capture him, pitting his psychics against the Marquise’s daughter’s. He’d sent beasts charging her way to distract her from taking hold of his mind, causing her to take “drastic measures” once she’d finally succeeded. They broke his legs, and now he was trapped in this dingy galley cabin, never to fly on his own merits.

Among the slaves it was just the two of them who still had wigglerish dreams of freedom. The others had long since given up. Some took adult names as boring as “The Oarsman”. So it was the two of them who clung to each other in the sleeping hours, whispering of plans and what-ifs. (And sometimes, when they couldn’t hold it in anymore and allowed themselves to cry, they spoke of their lusii and long lost hives.)

The Marquise had a thing for oddities. Rumors said it was partly because her lover in days of yore had been a mutant. The Marquise knew of the rumors and did nothing to dispel them. If she caught any of those whisperings, she merely smiled coyly, knowingly, in the direction of the gossipers.

Even quieter rumors, of the type only Bertha the cook would dare speak since she had been with the Marquise over a century and could get away with such things by claiming “veteran benefits”, said that one of the Marquise’s slaves was the son of her former lover. She’d tested him and, finding him not to be her own blood, kept him in the galley with the others in her collection of oddities.

Karkat had a feeling the Marquise’s almost-son was Tavros. It was the only reason Bertha would mention such a thing to him. As he watched Tavros and the Marquise’s interactions, he became sure of it. She would be almost tender to him one moment, and then harsher on him than any other slave. He was being punished for the circumstances of his birth.

No use being sad about it, though. That was just their lot in life, being mutant lowbloods. They had to push away their emotions if they wanted to stay sane.

Two became three when the Airship Mindfang raided an Imperial cargo ship. Mindfang was swifter than her prey, though no less heavily armed. She made off with the cargo, set the enemy ship ablaze and said, “Tch. Not even a challenge. Times like these make me miss Dualscar.”

“Those were the days, aye, mistress?”

“Yeah. We live in booooooooring times!”

Karkat overheard this conversation as he and the other slaves were sorting out their new acquisitions. He was paying more attention to eavesdropping than he was to unpacking, so he gasped when he felt the nip on his finger.

Mindfang with her razor-sharp instincts immediately turned his way and spotted the treasure he was carrying. It was a golden bird cage, and within it, a golden bird. Its joints meticulously crafted, it hopped and flapped as smoothly as its living counterpart.

“Ho, that’s an interesting one! What say you sing for me, pretty bird?”

The bird opened its beak and sang in a melodic voice that was unexpectedly troll-like. “Tweet tweet, caw caw. Up~ yours~ spider-bitch~!”

The coldness that crept into the Marquise’s seven-pupiled eye was the only warning before she snatched the cage out of Karkat’s hands, quicksilver fast. “How sweet,” she cooed with venom-laced voice, “that this little automaton has just offered itself to be smelted down. I could use a new dagger hilt.”

“Uh, um! M-marquise, mistress, may I k-keep him?”

Tavros kept his head bowed; his wings twitched miserably at his back. Why had he spoken out of turn? Karkat wanted to shush him as soon as he’d spoken aloud, but all he could do in the end was bite his own lips and hope for the best of the Marquise’s mercurial moods.

Mindfang’s fierce gaze bored into her quivering slave for seconds bordering on eternity. Finally, she turned away with a bored look on her face. She tossed the caged bird back to Karkat, who stumbled as he caught it.

“Hmph. Melt down the cage,” she said, gesturing with a flick of her long-fingered hand. “You can keep the bird, but if it insults me again, it’ll be _brass tacks_.”

The two young slaves rushed to move the little mouthy bird into their cabin, and there it stayed with them from then on. The bird’s name was Dave, and he had been the finest creation of a world-renowned tinkerer. He was being sent as a gift to a seadweller royal, he said. Karkat found it hard to believe that even the most talented tinkerer in the empire could produce a creature with such a troll-like mind. The body, yes, that was as realistic as any bird he had ever seen, but a body is a simple thing when compared to the mind.

He kept those questions to himself. In the sleeping hours, they were three: Tavros and Karkat clinging together on their dingy cot, no sopor to be found anywhere, and little Dave snuggled on top of them. In the waking hours, Dave sat on their shoulders or their heads as they went about their chores, and as the airship sailed over the skies of Alternia. Dave couldn’t fly very far without tiring, but it was enough for him to be a helpful eye from above for certain chores. The Marquise was content with their performance, so all was well.

Dave, however, was just the incentive the slaves needed to start getting serious about their plans for escape. They were both nearing full adult size; it wasn’t like they were still the helpless wigglers who’d been snatched up in the Marquise’s raids. Both were strong and agile from their sweeps of labor, even Tavros with his limp.

It started with Dave whispering into Tavros’ ears like a rapping fairy godfather. When Dave was on Tavros’ shoulders, sometimes Karkat would overhear snippets of things like, “Have confidence in yourself, bro” or “Flying is the shit. It is off the hook. Your shit and your hook are still together? Man, that’s just wrong. Shit and the hook broke up so long ago, you don’t even know.”

“What is, uh, the point of that metaphor?”

“Gotta let go, gotta let shit fly so it can hit the fan.”

“That, doesn’t help.”

“I mean we’ve got wings. You’ve gotta fly, like me. I’ll even teach you how.”

The change in Tavros wasn’t immediately noticeable, but he began to hold himself up higher. It was a good change. Good also that he knew to pretend to hunch back down whenever the Marquise or her daughter passed by.

To Karkat, they quipped and insulted each other, broke each other down to bring each other back up. Karkat, far from being a good-natured troll like Tavros, was shrewd and cynical. He appreciated Dave’s company, but it was hard to believe anything the bird said. There was no way Dave was a simple automaton. _Shenanigans_ were involved.

And why would Dave help them? What was there to gain by helping mutant slaves? If he were pragmatic in any way, he would try to sweet talk the Marquise instead. But Dave’s friendship remained steadfast. He made not a sound in her presence, for if he couldn’t say anything nice, he wouldn’t say anything at all.

A personality this strong could not belong to a mere machine. Karkat’s suspicions were strengthened when, while on kitchen duty, he cut himself peeling tubers. Karkat hissed at the sudden pain and, wigglerhood instincts kicking in, quickly ripped a strip of cloth from the hem of his worn shirt to wrap his bleeding finger. Dave had seen, though, and stared disconcertingly at the bandaged wound. The bird then hopped down the length of Karkat’s arm and onto his injured hand. Dave used his beak to tuck the ends of the bandage more securely.

Karkat gasped at the unexpected tenderness. “What was that about?” he asked once Dave was finished.

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s definitely something.”

“Shut up, man. I’ve got a soft spot for mutants, okay? Let’s just leave it at that.”

The bird could not be coaxed into saying more. This was fine for the moment since Karkat’s mind was focused on more pressing matters, such as their impending escape. While his talks with Tavros in the past were merely dreams, now they took on a more urgent tone. Tavros began to seek out the company of the Marquise’s daughter, though whether it was to gather intel or to try to win her over to their side, Karkat didn’t know and felt it wasn’t his place to ask.

Having been aboard the vessel for so long, they knew the layout inside and out. Problem was, so did their captors, and they also had _mind control_ on their side. “If only…” Karkat would think. If only they weren’t so susceptible to mind control… If only they could slip away silently into a crowded city… If only they could create so much chaos that the Marquise wouldn’t think to look for them until they were well away…

Karkat imagined that all three of them played the same scenarios through their minds, but it was Tavros who came to them with an ultimatum. He was, unlike his usual self, possessed of a strange calm. There was nearly none of the jittery countenance that Karkat had come to expect from Tavros when he approached them that fateful day.

The airship’s blinds were shuttered against the harsh sunlight as they continued to sail across the desert in daytime. Karkat, with Dave in his lap, had been dozing on their shared cot when the cabin door opened and gently closed.

“Are you awake?”

“What is it?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

“We’re getting out of here. Tomorrow. I have a plan.”

And Karkat listened, while Dave preened their hair, of how Tavros would secure for them flying mounts – those small, steam-powered vehicles that the corsairs used to maneuver around larger vessels in flight. They were light and swift, much swifter than any airship, though each could seat only one troll or two in a dire pinch.

“No. We escape _together_.”

“It has to be me!” Tavros hissed. “Vriska’s letting me do checks on the mounts while Gurrig is sick. We’ll never have an opportunity as good as this one, not for a long, long time. And I don’t know about you but I am _sick_ and _tired_ of being a slave. I don’t know how much longer I can pretend to be cowed! If we wait, it gives them more opportunities to rape our minds and find out what we’ve been planning. We’ve been too lucky not to have had this done to us already, but that’s only because they think we’re weak and scared. Karkat, I’m afraid I’ll slip up if we wait any longer. It _has_ to be now.”

Tavros was so worked up that for once in his life he didn’t stutter. What could Karkat do but agree? (Especially when he, too, chafed under chains, yearning for freedom.) He wasn’t told much more about the distraction that would come. He wasn’t told much other than “there will be explosions” and “don’t look back”.

And Tavros’ last words as they fell asleep the day before everything changed: “Don’t worry about me, I can fly.”

They didn’t see him when the moons rose, so they waited by their assigned post.

“I hate it, too,” Dave said. The mechanical bird perched on Karkat’s shoulder ruffled his metal feathers with a bell-like tinkling. Dave shifted from foot to foot as he settled down more comfortably in the crook of Karkat’s neck.

“But we have no choice, is that what you’re going to say?”

“Nah, I’ve got plenty of choices. S’not me who’ll be the mutant on the run.”

“Oh, yeah, like a tiny tin sparrow could get far on his own.”

“ _Excuse you_ , this fine bomb-ass chassis is 100% high quality alpha-beta brass, baby. Fucking pure Muntz metal here, the real deal.”

“And that mouth of yours would get you crushed under a boot regardless, assuming you didn’t get captured by a mad scientist for study.”

“Touché.”

Their banter cut off prematurely when an ominous shadow descended over the airship. Silence settled over them like a shroud but for the clock’s tick. Tock. And. Then.

BOOM!

The first of many explosions rocked the Mindfang, followed by near-crazed cackling. Karkat rushed up to the deck in time to see Mindfang’s crew scurrying about, trying to put out the fire. _Dragon fire_.

Hovering above the airship was a dragon lusus, its pearlescent scales tinged green and pink in the moonlight.

“ _Pyralspite_ ,” the Marquise spat. “How?”

“That’s for my mom, you jerk!” A slim troll rode on the dragon’s back, dwarfed many times over by her monstrous lusus. Together they swooped and dived, the dragon spitting fire every chance it got.

The Marquise retaliated by commanding her crew to shoot it down with their hand-cannons. The dragon was nimble for its size, but surely it couldn’t dodge every attack aimed at its back?

Not so. It did indeed dodge every attack. The girl troll, under the dragon’s psychic protection, was immune to mind control. But even so, there was no way she could see, from her vantage point, each shot aimed in her lusus’ direction. _Someone else_ was helping her control the dragon.

Karkat, with Dave tucked into his breast pocket, took advantage of the confusion to run across the deck to the smoldering remains of the flying mounts. There remained, in the furthest corners, few of the winged vehicles that looked to be in good condition. One had its ignition lock severed, and this Karkat assumed to be Tavros’ work.

He hopped onto the mount and cranked the ignition so it sputtered to life. Dave whooped from his pocket as they launched, and this was met with a whoop from behind them, amidst the chaos. Karkat, despite having been told not to, turned his head around to see Tavros diving off the deck of the Mindfang in a straight plummet, cannons aimed at him from above.

For a moment, his bloodpusher stopped, but then Tavros spread his wings and took flight for the very first time. He flew in the opposite direction with a dragon at his back and shielding his mind, the slowly sinking Airship Mindfang still giving chase.

“Fuck, that’s badass,” Dave said.

Karkat, heart thumping, adrenaline winding down, knew that he was powerless to help. He had no words, so he pressed the mount onward until it could go no further.

It sputtered to a stop at the edge of an unfamiliar desert town. Karkat’s eyes had filled in fully, a bright unmistakable crimson. He couldn’t hide as a rustblood anymore, so his first order of business was to obtain a thick gray cloak with a hood deep enough to shadow most of his features.

It was nearing dawn as he hastily completed this transaction with double-stolen galleons, and he was glad of it. It was a sun cloak, meant for traversing the wastelands in the daytime, and it was just enough to protect him as he curled inside it to sleep.

Dave kept watch for zombies.

Tavros’ loss was a huge blow to the both of them. They didn’t talk much about their friend and what ill fates he might have met, but for a while that was all they thought of, so they didn’t talk much at all.

Seasons they passed in this manner, the bird and the troll, wandering high and low, always careful not to approach others. Karkat worked when he could; Dave performed. Karkat stole when he couldn’t; Dave distracted his marks so he could do the deed. Through cities, plains and deserts they walked, growing closer with each step.

“If you were a troll, would we be moirails?”

“If you were a bird, would we have a little love nest made of steel wool? Yo Karkat incubate our Faberge eggs while I flap off to be the grubloaf winner of this charming avian family.”

“Fuck that. _I_ am the leader of this operation, and so _I_ would be the grubloaf winner in any given scenario. The eggs came out of your shiny metal cloaca, you incubate them!”

Sweeps they passed in this manner, in this not unpleasant rhythm they had established. Karkat forgot most of his wigglerhood dreams; forgot, almost, the pain of losing his lusus. He’d had his second pupation right before his capture, but only now did he finally feel as if he’d grown into his adult skin.

He was… content. It was a feeling he never thought he’d have. On some nights it was almost happiness, especially with Dave by his side, when they would sit to watch the moons rise or set and banter endlessly about everything and nothing all at once. The fact that he was a mutant never left his mind, and he knew this meant he could never properly fill his quadrants. But even that ache was dulled when he thought of spending the rest of his days just like this, wandering and wandering with Dave never more than a heartbeat away. It was a love story of sorts, or would be if they weren’t a troll and a bird.

But all good things must come to an end. The old suspicions that Karkat had about Dave, which he had never worked up the courage to pursue, came back to haunt him when he noticed his friend beginning to creak at the joints. No oil could help him; his screws were too delicate to be tampered with normal tools.

“Karkat… Karkat, I’m… I need maintenance. I want to see this journey through with you, I’m not ready to die! We need to find Tavros, we need to… There’s so much more we need to do, but I’m _breaking_ , god, it’s getting harder to speak!”

“What can I do?!”

“Find him, the Puppeteer. He’s the one who made me.”

 

* * *

 

Karkat pounds on the door with his entire arm. The other clutches Dave to his chest. “Open up! Please, please!”

He stumbles when the hive door is pulled back. When he glances up from beneath his hood, he finds the owner of the hive staring down at him, eyes hidden behind sunblockers. The Puppeteer is large for a lowblood, shoulders broad and nearly highblood-menacing.

“What do you want?” he asks, gruff and to the point.

Karkat, hands shaking and head still carefully lowered, opens his cupped palms before the tinkerer’s shielded eyes.

“…Come in,” he says.

Dave is taken into the Puppeteer’s workshop. Karkat hears nothing of how his friend is faring. He waits on the couch and eats when the Puppeteer comes out for his own break.

“You can take off the cloak, I know you’re a mutant. It’s fine.”

Karkat is given use of the recuperacoon. He sleeps in proper sopor for the first time in ages. It’s the most comfortable he can remember being, yet his thoughts dwell on Dave and Dave alone.

Conversation with the Puppeteer is terse, though not hostile. Karkat is a fair bit intimidated by the elder troll even though most of his questions have been answered politely. But when Karkat asks, “How’s Dave?” he gets no response. The Puppeteer ducks back into his locked workshop for hours and hours at a time.

The Puppeteer is a master of hiding his emotions. There is never the slightest hint of his thoughts on his face, so it is with dread pooling in his belly that Karkat follows him into the workshop on the night he finally gets the nod.

Moonlight streams in from the open windows. Aided by well-placed lamps, the room is quite brightly lit. Karkat supposes it has to be for the delicate work that is done here. His eyes scan half the room before immediately being drawn to the work table.

“ _Dave?_ ” Karkat feels his breath hitch and tears sting at his eyes as he gazes at the dismantled bird. Brass feathers gleam under the lamp light, each laid out apart. It’s _Dave_. He wants to scream! He wants to retch! _He’ll tear the Puppeteer apart for this!_

“No,” he Puppeteer says. He puts a hand on Karkat’s shoulder and guides him to turn to the side.

There lies, on a resting platform, a young troll with his eyes closed and a sopor-soaked rag above his brow. His age is impossible to tell, for while his build is that of an adult, albeit a slim one and most surely lowblooded, his skin is the lighter gray of an adolescent. His features are delicate, almost frail for a troll, but with hints of strength to come in future sweeps. He is pitifully beautiful.

“Dehvid,” the Puppeteer says, “my descendant.”

Sure enough, their jagged horns are the same. Karkat’s rage abates as quickly as it rose. His voice is small. “I don’t understand…?”

He falters in his steps, but eventually makes it to sit at Dehvid’s side. In low tones, the Puppeteer begins a tale of finding a mutant wiggler whose crow lusus had just died. The wiggler came to his doorstep, fearlessly demanding that his departed lusus be immortalized as one of the Puppeteer’s automatons, for he’d heard this particular tinkerer was so skilled – the most skilled in all Alternia! – that he could bring the dead to life with machinery.

He couldn’t, of course, for neither Time nor Life were his elements. What was gone was gone, and the told the wiggler such. But he had noticed, during their exchange, that the wiggler had horns the same shape as his own, and bore on his chest the very same symbol that decorated his own belongings as well.

The Puppeteer was a brownblood, but his descendant was a redblooded mutant. How this came to pass, he didn’t know and didn’t much care. But he looked out for his own, and so the wiggler came to live with him in this very seaside hut. He trained the young troll and passed on much of his martial prowess – anything to ensure that his descendant could protect himself.

But the world is not kind to lowbloods, and to mutants least of all. Once his eyes gained a bit of color, Dehvid was locked away in the hive most days out of fear of discovery. He wore sunblockers when he went out, and was taught to be so quick in a strife that his opponents never had a chance to draw blood. There were so many precautions to take, it wasn’t much of a life at all.

The Puppeteer, because he cared, built for Dehvid a little brass sparrow. With a dash of science, a dash of magic, he managed to connect Dehvid’s consciousness with his creation. And he sent the bird off on a voyage, to an old seadweller friend far on the other side of Alternia, all so Dehvid could breathe and fly and interact with the world without fear.

He was to spend a sweep there and come swiftly back. When the bird was lost in a pirate attack, the Puppeteer nearly lost hope that his descendant’s psyche could be recovered. Still, he kept the body in stasis and had been waiting ever since.

The Puppeteer finishes his story as quietly and impassively as he began it. Karkat is left alone with Dehvid and his own thoughts.

“You asshole… You were a mutant all along, just like me…” Karkat kisses the sleeping troll on the temple.

Dave grins with his eyes still closed. “Aw, shucks, I feel like a princess. But without the sea-tentacles.”

There are more kisses, light and chaste, heavy with promise, and most definitely not pale. “If I were a troll,” Dave asks, “would we be matesprits?”

“Yes.”

 

* * *

 

The Puppeteer, when they tell him about their quest to find Tavros, lifts his eyebrows in the mysterious, knowing way some older trolls have. It’s always annoying as fuck, but even more so coming from this douchebag because he does it so well. All he says is, “Prepare yourselves for a surprise soon.”

A few nights later, when the moons are at their brightest, a shadow falls over the cliffside hut. When Dave and Karkat rush out in alarm, they first see the airship high above, wood and gleaming metal slowly drifting down, and then the silhouette of a winged figure jumping off the deck.

Tavros whoops during freefall and laughs when his wings flare out to soften his landing. He runs (still with a limp) over to greet his old friends, hastily pushing his goggles up to his forehead.

“Hey, I missed you guys! Um, come on up!”

A cackle comes from the airship’s deck and dragon-lusus-girl waves to them.

The Puppeteer saunters up behind them as they gape, and he says, smirking, “The Aeronaut’s been recruiting young mutants around these parts, freeing slaves and servants, gathering up all the discontented lowbloods. I figured he must’ve been your friend from the description.”

Hand in hand, they run off to join the pirates. Goddamn lususfucking _pirates_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god. I don't know what happened here. It's a monster. I mean, they were supposed to be *ficlets*, like 500-1000 words or so, and I know some have already gone over that but jesus. JESUS. JESUS FRICKIN KARKAT.
> 
> This fic just would not cooperate until I made Tavros the hero. (He robs from the highblooded and gives to the lowblooded. Justice approved.) Also Bro. I guess he's kind of heroic too. (His seadweller friend was totally Roxy btw.)
> 
> So... Sky pirates! If you made it this far, lemme know what you thought?


End file.
